In order to survive and prosper in a human ecosystem that is in a state of perpetual change, human operators (individuals, groups, organizations, etc.) need access to contemporaneous information describing current and prior states of their ecosystem components and ecosystem as a whole. They also need the ability to find and share information necessary to interact with components of their ecological and information environment, and to cooperate, collaborate, and compete among themselves.
In their activities, human operators use disparate computing systems as platforms. Each platform implements narrowly focused information models of the human ecosystem. The platforms can be deployed over a plurality of computing systems interconnected through an array of local and wide area networks including private networks and the Internet. Conventional approaches to facilitate human operators' activities and interactions include a plurality of platforms and applications that each support a specific area or a specific class of activities. By way of example, social networks are used for social interactions, eCommerce platforms for selling and buying goods, Web sites for publishing product information, etc. Proliferation of these platforms force the user to create multiple disjoint digital identities and leads to user information space fragmentation. It also generates vast amounts of information that overruns human capabilities for information management. Rapid advent of Internet of Things (IoT) and proliferation of electronic agents that control technologically enabled and connected Things further increase the number of interaction platforms. It exacerbates the problem by offering a plurality of apps that create walled-off islands of information. Hence, there is a need to develop integrated platforms to facilitate human operator activities.
Information search represents an important part of human operator's activities. To facilitate the search, an industry of search providers (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others) developed a plurality of search engines. Existing search engines provide user searching for information with a plurality of possible matching information hits related to a user request. Several approaches are in use to improve accuracy of search and help the user in selecting a best match. Google and others use sophisticated ranking algorithms. Local search services employ geographic location of the user to find nearby businesses and services. The amount of hits being delivered by these search engines still overloads the user by requiring him to select needed information from a vast plurality of options. In addition, human operators have a growing volume of private or personal information that they do not make available to search engine providers. Therefore, there is a need to develop new information search environments and methods to improve search accuracy and reduce an amount of hits presented to a user.